Indoor cultural pursuits are very much part of a traveller's winter itenary, and so it's no surprise to see more inside events on my schledule every week. Today was no exception, and for this reason, today would also mark the first day in my whole scholarship where I didn't even take one photograph. Believe me, my eyes were peeled as ever in attempt to find something beyond the mundane to comment on!
My day started very early; earlier than the usual anyway, but I was scheduled to have another permafrost meeting with yet two more permafrost experts at 9:00am: Yuri Shur and Mikhail Kanevskiy. Making pancakes at 7:30am, with one eye half open, was not the most enjoyable activity, but it had to be done, and I made my way out of the hostel, and proceeded to Yuri's office in 4 degree temperatures. By the time I had reached the office, as usual, I had warmed up considerably and the beanie hat and the overcoat weren't required.
Having been the chief sports journalist for my high school for many years, I am no stranger to awkward interviews, and I have to admit one occured with Yuri and Mikhail this morning. The chat started with me receiving a load of scientific papers to read and from then on, whatever question I asked, the answer would always be "read the papers; the answers will be in there." Quite possibly, and I will certainly read them. Yuri and Mikhail study permafrost features, such as ice wedges and thaw bulbs, and I was interested in how climate change would affect these features; it seems that these two professors give no regard to climate change whatsoever and Yuri made it quite clear he wasn't interested in predicting what might happen.
I walked out the meeting, carrying what seemed like a whole library on permafrost, and not a very full dictaphone. Having said that, I will transcribe the conversation and put it up with the others. I returned to the hostel, and started to read the mountain of papers that I had just been given; some of which made very interesting reading.
At 1:00pm, the university was holding the first in a series of weekly free music concerts. The great thing about these is you don't know what is on the programme. I arrived just before 1:00pm, in the Charles Davis Concert Hall; an audience was building and on the stage was a vibraphone and a mirimba, so I knew we were in for some tuned percussion to start off with. I was quite right, in fact, the first performance was an atonal performance on the vibraphone. From GCSE music, I guessed it was serialism, but it's been ages since I've studied it, and I could be wrong. The second performance on marimba was much more pleasing on the ear, and it reminded me of one of my favourite contemporary pieces ever: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. (Simply wonderful!) Flute and Piano were next, followed by three operatic performances: two female sopranos and one male tenor. All in all, a very mixed performance; I look forward to hearing more as the weeks go on.
The last item on my itenary today was to see a film called 23 degrees, and it was being held in the visitor centre. From my understanding, it would document how some people in Alaska live simply, using basic sustainable resources. I got to the visitor centre, only to find out that they had actually lost the DVD! In return, they asked me what interested me, to which I replied "I'm a geographer" and he said he'd find something. Well, he most certainly found something geographical for me to watch, but unfortuately it was the 'Wrangell St Elias National Park' documentary I had watched the other day. Well, it might have been my second viewing, but it still captivated me, demonstrating the true power of a good documentary.
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